Company Ownership

Formerly known as Steinhoff Asia Pacific, it changed its name to Greenlit Brands in 2018 while its parent company faced scrutiny for accounting irregularities. Operates 640 stores across Australia and New Zealand, and 8 factories across Australia, China and Vietnam.

Diversified manufacturer and marketer of furniture and other household goods whose operations cover Africa, Europe, India, and the Pacific Rim. Australian assets include Freedom furniture, Best & Less and Harris Scarfe. Purchased Pepkor Holdings in 2014 for $6.7 billion.

Company Assessment

This company won an award in 2016 from the Australian Packaging Covenant, for demonstrating their commitment to environmental sustainability by performing 'above and beyond' in their efforts to minimise waste. This company achieved the highest overall score in their category, large retailers.[Source 2016][More on Packaging]

Oxfam Australia's Company Tracker compares the big clothing brands on their efforts to pay a living wage to the women working in their factories. This company has not published a list of its supplier factories or made a public commitment to paying living wages.[Source 2019][More on Workers Rights]

Oxfam Australia's 2016 Transparency Scorecard investigates 12 of Australia's major fashion retailers and reveals which ones have published the names and locations of their factories. This company has not published any of their overseas suppliers' names or addresses.[Source 2016][More on Governance]

C grade in the Baptist World Aid Australia's 'Ethical Fashion Report 2019', which grades companies, from A to F, on the strength of their systems to mitigate against the risks of forced labour, child labour and worker exploitation in their supply chains, as well as protect the environment from the harmful impacts of the fashion industry. Assessment criteria fall into five main categories: policies, transparency and traceability, auditing and supplier relationships, worker empowerment and environmental management.[Source 2019][More on Workers Rights]

According to data released by the Australian Tax Office in Dec 2018, this company was one of 2,159 local and foreign-based companies that paid no tax in Australia in 2016-17. Please note however that companies pay income tax on profits, not revenue (total income). While some companies use tax havens and loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of tax in Australia, other companies that paid no tax have perfectly legitimate reasons.[Source 2018][More on Finance]

In December 2017 Steinhoff went from having a market capitalisation of $US19 billion to $US1.9 billion in the space of a few days, after it was discovered that several years of audited accounts could not be trusted.[Source 2018][More on Finance]